Category Archives: Events

The streets around Aggie Hall will be closed to traffic from 2:30 p.m. until well after the fireworks.

You are invited to submit an application for this year’s Festival of Lights Craft and Artisan Fair to be held at Aggie Hall, 1110 First Avenue, Ladysmith, on the day of our “Light Up”, November 29th, 2018.

Setup: 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Event: 3 p.m. to about 9 p.m.

The table set up will be similar to that of the 2017 Craft Fair. If you have specific requests as to the table(s) you want, please indicate this on your form. We will attempt to honour your request, but cannot promise to do so. We reserve the right to deny a table to any vendor who we deem to not fit the guidelines and spirit of our craft fair.

Please note that if you send a post-dated cheque, the application will not be processed until your cheque has been cashed. Please send your completed forms (with cheque) to:

Downloads

Please note that our office is not officially open until mid-September so it may take some time to get a reply to any inquiries. Applications will be processed according to the post mark on your envelope.

Their investment of time pays off huge for the community each holiday season, attracting thousands to the seaside town to spend money that keeps businesses going. The growth of volunteerism there, is bucking the trend seen in other parts of Canada.

Since moving to Ladysmith seven years ago Robin Francis has become wrapped up in the town’s signature event.

“I love it. I love it,” says the Ladysmith man. “It just goes you a really good feeling here (patting his chest) being a part of it and it’s such a wonderful town.

This take down day marks the end of the Ladysmith Festival of Lights that brought an estimated 15,000 tourists to the town this past holiday season,

This past Sunday saw the town’s 29th Festival of Lights set-up work party. With the weather people calling for a very miserable day… it started off amazingly sunny and just continued to get better.

Almost before the 9a.m. sign up time for volunteers to show up there were people lined up to help. The folks manning the registration were not actually prepared for such a large group let alone so early.

The Ladysmith Ambassador candidates, as well as the three Ambassadors, showed up en masse and tool on the job of decorating the trees along side Aggie hall and then moved on to help with the trees at Bob Stuart Park.

This year the folks at GNB Builders had their entire staff, and families, come out to help, which FOL organizers said was a first that an “organized group” took on doing some blocks. Having a co-ordinated group, that is familiar with each other was neat and they worked very well and quickly said the Greg Edwards, festival president.

Along with the volunteers, on the streets, doing lights in the trees volunteers from BC Hydro line crews came out to help and brought three bucket trucks with them. Edwards said,

“The support from these volunteers from Hydro, and Hydro donating the use of the trucks has really made a huge difference on what we can do on setup day. We used to have to climb ladders with all the decorations, but now with these guys … they just lift the decorations and place them on the roofs.” Edwards went on to say, “What used to take us up to three weeks now gets done in a day!”

V.I. Tree Services from Nanaimo, also sent down two of their bucket trucks and crews to help the Town’s citizens prepare for the annual Light Up. Duck Paterson, FOL member, said,

“With these guys helping it gave us an opportunity to get the decorations done quicker it also gave the Fire/Rescue volunteers a big help”.

Members of the Ladysmith Fire Rescue Department have been coming out for years and doing all the re-bulbing on the buildings downtown. Paterson said,

“With the lights being up as long as they have, we’re finding that more and more are burning out and it’s getting to be quite a chore. So we’re very grateful for the support of the Fire Department for all that they do and we’re really really appreciative of V.I. Tree Service for working with them.”

The Festival of Lights will be celebrating their 29th anniversary on Thursday, November 24th with the parade, spaghetti dinner, lots of concessions and wrapping up with an amazing fireworks show sponsored by the Ladysmith and District Credit Union.

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My husband John and I are from Nanaimo. We are spending three months in the wonderful Californian sun, and enjoying the many cultural events and festivals held at this time of year in Palm Springs. Yesterday we spent time at the International Tamale Festival and had delicious treats. However why I am really contacting you is to inform you that you have ruined all Christmas Parades for us!!!!